Believe it or not, there had never been a goalie fight in the storied and scrappy history of the NHL’s Battle of Alberta, but Calgary’s Cam Talbot and Edmonton’s Mike Smith changed than when they duked it out at centre ice at the Saddledome in another intense, emotional chapter of this renewed rivalry.

Yeah, the same Mike Smith who tended twine for the Flames before signing with the other guys this past summer.

Yeah, the same Cam Talbot who was previously employed by the enemies a few hours north on the QEII Highway.

If there was any doubt, it’s now official — the Battle of Alberta is back.

Matthew Tkachuk and Zack Kassian started to spice it up again.

Talbot and Smith certainly did their part.

“I didn’t like the fact that (Oilers forward Sam Gagner) comes in and spears me when I’m on my back after the whistle,” Talbot said after his first career tussle. “In a game like that, those things kind of set you off, and I reacted accordingly. Probably not the smartest reaction on my part, but it’s an emotional game and emotions got the best of me.”

According to the fisticuff-trackers at HockeyFights.com, there have now been 261 recorded rumbles between the Flames and Oilers.

This was the first to feature a pair of masked men.

Talbot, on in relief of starter David Rittich, was steamed that Gagner had jabbed at a puck in his pads as the referee was whistling a stoppage.

He shoved Gagner a couple of times, then got tangled up with Alex Chiasson along the endboards.

When Talbot popped the Oilers’ winger with his blocker, Smith was arriving near the centre line.

The 32-year-old Talbot was soon skating to meet him in the middle.

It was, as the legendary Ed Whale would have put it, a “ring-a-ding-dong-dandy.” The refs even halted the period with 24 seconds remaining, playing that last portion after the intermission.

Smith, who spent the past two winters on the Saddledome payroll, won the game despite his early ejection. The 37-year-old won the fight with Talbot too, landing several rights.

“It was an emotional reaction,” Talbot said. “I was already kind of in a couple of scrums and then I saw him standing there. It was one of those things, you just react to it. I didn’t expect to get thrown out of the game for it. I thought it was more just a five-minute major type of thing.

“Unfortunately, Ritter had to go back in there and I feel bad that I made that decision and put him in that spot.”

You couldn’t blame any goalie for looking for an early out on this evening.

When Talbot scrapped with Smith, the Flames had already surrendered 38 shots. They were trailing by a 6-3 count, including a pair of markers by Oilers superstar Connor McDavid.

During that same second-period brouhaha, Tkachuk dropped ’em with Ethan Bear, while Gagner was assessed a roughing penalty for his role in the fracas. (It was, of course, Tkachuk’s second Battle of Alberta bout of the week after he settled his feud Kassian in Wednesday’s run-in at Rogers Place.)

“It looks like the whistle had gone and the guy was digging at the puck, and (Talbot) took exception to it and away you go,” said Flames interim coach Geoff Ward. “It’s like throwing a spark on dry tinder. What can you say? At that point, he’s pissed off. It’s probably good that he was. And away it goes.”

The rest of the Flames should be pissed off, too.

Everybody will be talking about the knuckle-chucking netminders, but the fact is they were embarrassed on home ice by their archrivals.

“Everybody saw the same thing — they were good and we weren’t,” Ward fumed. “The lessons we take out of this? We have to be way more competitive. I thought some of our guys were. I thought as a team, overall, we could have been more competitive.

“I want the feeling to stick with us, for sure. For a while. If you’re not a little bit angry in your stomach about what happened tonight and it’s not bothering you, then we probably have an issue. We need to harness that a little bit. At the same point in time, we’ve talked about how we have to control what we can control, and now all we can control is how we prepare for our next game.”

Their next game comes Tuesday against the San Jose Sharks.

Too bad it’s not the Oilers. These squads don’t face off again until April 4, the regular-season finale for both.

The crew from Calgary had won three in a row against their northern neighbours over a five-week span but now, for two-plus months, your co-workers, pals or in-laws from Oil Country will have something to boast about.

The out-of-town team was certainly better Saturday.

They, at least, showed up on time.

Anthem singer George Canyon had barely finished O Canada when Oilers youngster Kailer Yamamoto — somehow all alone out front — tucked a rebound. Then, Kassian buried a one-timer on the second shift of the evening.

Edmonton Oilers Kailer Yamamoto celebrates after a goal against goalie David Rittich of the Calgary Flames during NHL hockey in Calgary on Saturday February 1, 2020. Al Charest / Postmedia

After just 65 seconds of action, the locals were already sizing up a two-goal deficit. Smith made his best stop of the night moments later, scrambling back for a desperation save on Johnny Gaudreau.

“A team that thrives on offence and putting pucks in the net, we allowed their best players to really feel it tonight,” Giordano said. “And that was the difference. They got the lead early and they never really looked back.”

Buddy Robinson, Tkachuk and Elias Lindholm did the lamp-lighting for the Flames, while Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Caleb Jones, Gagner and Gaetan Haas — on a penalty shot — also tallied for the Oilers and Leon Draisaitl piled up four assists.

Recalled earlier in the week from the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat, Robinson looked like a big-leaguer on his first marker in the Flaming C.

The 28-year-old right-winger hustled around Jones on a two-on-two rush, lifting the stick of the Oilers defenceman so that he wouldn’t be able to disrupt an incoming pass from Gaudreau. When the puck arrived, Robinson chipped a shot past Smith, with his longtime pal — he and Gaudreau go way back to their minor-hockey days — retrieving the keepsake puck before joining the celebration.

“I think I needed to be a part of it to actually see how crazy it is,” Robinson said of his two tastes so far of the Battle of Alberta. “It’s fun, and it definitely brings out a lot of emotions. We’re 3-1 against these guys now and I don’t think we have them for a while, so we definitely have time to stew on this one. Next time we get ’em, it’s going to be a fun one. I know we have some revenge that we have to give out.”

ICE CHIPS

After biting their tongues for a couple of days, the Oilers admitted after this drubbing that they were ticked about Rittich’s stick-flip after he sealed Wednesday’s shootout triumph in Edmonton. “It’s just disrespectful,” Draisaitl said. “We hit two posts (in the shootout) and he’s celebrating like … they just won the Stanley Cup. I get it. They’re excited. Good for them. They won the game in the shootout. But show some respect, I think. That’s my opinion” … There was a rare WHL-NHL twin bill Saturday at the Saddledome, with the host Hitmen cruising to a 5-0 rout of the Red Deer Rebels in an afternoon affair before the Flames and Oilers hit the ice for their late date … Flames farmhand Ryan Lomberg won’t be a candidate for a call-up anytime soon — the 25-year-old forward requires ankle surgery and is officially listed as month-to-month. Lomberg, an alternate captain for the Heat, has been limited to just 21 appearances in the minors so far this season, averaging just shy of a point per game.

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